Tropico
4 is the latest installment of the single-player sim franchise
developed by Haemimont Games and published by Kalypso Media and builds
upon the popular Tropico 3. While everybody’s favorite
satirical radio personality is gone, new features such as monitoring
imports, more superpowers, and ministers have been added. The premise
is that the player is El Presidente, the dictator of a small Caribbean
island nation during the Cold War and who wields absolute power.
In this tongue-in-cheek sim, the player
attempts to build up his tiny island, dealing with a myriad of problems
(exports, farming, factions, foreign powers, natural disasters, etc.),
while also trying to squirrel money away in a Swiss bank account for
retirement. Is playing a tyrant in Tropico
4 fun?

Cautions

The only caution is that the humor in the game can be very broad, so
there are a lot of stereotypes and caricatures of different
nationalities, political types, and ethnicities. If you’re
thin-skinned and easily offended, then I recommend staying away. If you
don’t have a stick up your ass, then you’ll have no
problem.

Gameplay - 80 / 100

Tropico 4
has all the elements that you would expect in a
nation-building sim. You build the structure of your island nation over
time, starting off with essentials such as farms and housing. Later on,
you’ll attempt to improve the situation of your people (and
your bank account!) by adding industry, wooing tourists to your island
paradise, and trying to keep your people happy and safe.

The gameplay of Tropico 4
is, overall, very solid and quite fun. One
aspect of the game that keeps you on your toes is all the factions that
you’ll have to contend with as you try to stay in power.
You’ll have to deal with divergent groups such as communists,
capitalists, loyalists, religious, intellectuals, and even tree-hugging
environmentalists. Keep the factions happy and your reign of power will
be an easy one. However, not only do you have internal factions to deal
with, but there are also different foreign powers to appease as well.
The leaders of the various factions will make demands to you from time
to time, such as passing an edict to curb litter (environmentalists) or
prohibit alcohol (religious). Each citizen of your island has their own
views and opinions, which you can see by clicking on them. Are they
communist or capitalist? What faction do they belong to? You will
definitely want to make sure that the larger factions are happy. If
building roads and timber mills will make 60% of your population happy
but will piss off the 10% that are environmentalists, you’ll
definitely will want to tell the tree-huggers to get stuffed.

As you chug along in your tyrannical ways, various tasks (missions)
will come up that you can undertake in order to get a reward upon the
completion of that task. These tasks help add some spice to
nation-building as it provides kind of a little storyline to the game.
Adding to the mix are the various natural disasters that can occur. In
one scenario, my poor little island got hit by two earthquakes, one
erupting volcano, and a drought! There’s nothing more
irritating that having just built a building only to have it fall down
during an earthquake or get burnt down by the erupting volcano. (Hint:
build a fire department!)

There are three modes to play this single-player sim: campaign,
sandbox, and user-created content. The campaign mode is comprised of 20
scenarios, each dealing with a specific theme (foreign factions,
mining). Once you win a scenario, you can stop or continue playing if
you wish. In the sandbox mode, you can create your own custom island or
choose from a list of islands and just go to town. Finally, there are
some user-created scenarios that you can choose to play, or you can
create your own and share them.

The game is definitely light-hearted and is chock full of humor. The
humor can be very broad and the game definitely uses stereotypes for
comedic effect. I found the humor to be refreshing and it kept the game
of playing a dictator fun and light, rather than depressing if
you’re oppressing people and setting up secret police and
prisons. One example comes to mind. After an earthquake, some miners
became trapped. I had the choice to rescue them right away or hold off
to get some foreign aid for disaster relief. I decided to wait and gave
a speech about unity that helped out my prestige, and I eventually got
some foreign aid (some of it diverted to my Swiss bank account).
Afterwards, I allowed the rescue of the miners and I came out smelling
like a rose.

There are a couple of drawbacks to Tropico 4. First, the game can have
a steep learning curve for players new to sims. While there is an
excellent tutorial, there is a lot of depth to the game that is glossed
over. Newer players will do a lot of trial-and-error. An example is
creating an army if you’re worried about rebels. How do you
create soldiers? Do you build an army base? The answer is no as that
the army base provides housing and medical care for soldiers. You have
to build an armory to get a general. Once you have a general, you build
a guard station, which then gives you three soldiers. You need one
general per three soldiers. I lost a few mines to some freedom-hating
rebels before I found this information out. I would heartily recommend
thoroughly going over all the information on each building when you
first start to play. There are a lot of pre-requisites for special
buildings that you will need to be aware of if you truly want to retire
in luxury in the Swiss Alps.

The gameplay can
also become a bit repetitive during the scenarios. While
you’re focusing on a theme, the basis nation-building
strategy stays the same: start by building food sources and housing and
then later adding infrastructure and advanced structures. Also, there
are times when you’re playing a scenario where
you’ll see that you’ll obviously fulfill the
winning conditions, but you’ll have to grind it out to export
that last piece of merchandise. Still, while Tropico
4
doesn’t re-invent the wheel for sims, it is solid fun.

Graphics - 87 / 100

The graphics in Tropico 4
are nicely detailed and vibrantly colorful.
The look of the game really nails the Caribbean theme of your little
island nation. From the jagged mountains to the sandy beaches, this
game will put you in a tropical state of mind just from looking at it.
My particular favorite is the ruins that can occur, which you can turn
into profit by either excavating or turning it into a museum. The game
is great to look at, and I am guilty of wasting time just watching my
little country chugging along. (Unless rebels are attacking my precious
ore mines!)

Sound - 77 / 100

Tropico 4
has pretty good sound with Mariachi music playing in the
background along with voices from the various faction leaders. Of
particular note are various radio broadcasts that occur after certain
events, such as firing an incompetent head of a department. Voices are
usually done in a humorous way, such as the trippy accent of the
environmentalist leader or the Margaret Thatcher-clone that talks in a
very broad, uptight English accent. However, the music quickly becomes
repetitive and you’ll find yourself tuning it out pretty
quickly. It would have been nicer to have more of a music selection as
you play the game.

Value - 87 / 100

You’ll definitely get your money’s worth out ofTropico 4.
The campaign mode will easily last for forty hours or more,
and the sandbox gameplay will allow you to spend many more hours trying
your hand at various different situations. If you want to try out
scenarios created by other users, you can give those a try or you can
devise your own to share with other players.

Lasting Appeal - 82 / 100

Tropico 4
has a pretty good lasting appeal mainly through the sandbox
mode and being able to try out scenarios created by other players. You
can also play as different dictators, each with their own strengths and
weaknesses. The various facets of the game, such as the different tasks
that can come up, the unpredictable natural disasters, and the humor
all lend themselves towards keeping the game fresh and light. You will
come back as El Presidente to see if you can be an even more effective
tyrant.

Conclusion

Tropico 4
is a fun, but surprisingly deep, sim to play. While gameplay
can become repetitive, the overall experience is very good and dealing
with natural disasters or various tasks enlivens the gaming experience.
Dealing with the various factions and their almost never-ending demands
kept me on my toes, and the humor in the game keeps the game fresh and
upbeat. Playing a dictator of a banana republic is quite fun. WhileTropico 4
isn’t a revolution in sims, it’s damn
entertaining. Just remember, if you want to send aid, that half goes
toward El Presidente’s retirement fund!